Dumbarton's Ally Love claims he received death threats following his horror tackle on Rangers starlet Alex Lowry - and has denied he deliberitely tried to injure the player.
Former Clyde star Love lunged in late on the Uddingston teenager during Rangers B's 7-0 demoltion job on Dumbarton in the SPFL Trust Trophy on Tuesday night.
It forced Lowry to be stretchered off the pitch in the 89th minute of the match, having scored a hat-trick in a scintillating display.
Rangers B boss David McCallum was left furious by the challenge on the youngster, who is on the comeback trail after picking up an injury in pre-season, and said Lowry was left 'in distress' after the incident.
Video of the challenge has since surafced online and it has sparked a fierce backlash from Rangers fans online. The extent of Lowry's injury is not yet known.
Love has now broken his silence on the incident and says he has been hounded on social media with death threats.
But the 31-year-old winger insists he did not mean to injure the attacking midfielder intentionally and wished him well in his recovery.
Retweeting a video of the tackle, Love posted: “I want to put out there after death threats and people asking me to die over this tackle!
"I hope Alex is ok. By no means would I want to deliberately injure anyone, I needlessly lunge in trying to stop a cross.
"Tackles like this happen on a football park every other week.”
Lowry hit his treble within 49 minutes, netting inside the eighth minute before slotting home a 16th minute penalty. He completed his hat-trick four minutes into the second half.
Last night Lowry tweeted to congratulate Rangers on their qualification for the Champions League after a 1-0 win over PSV Eindhoven, but gave no update on his injury.
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